B.E.S.T. in Mumbai

It
has been stated in the last chapter that the B.E.S.T. Company
Limited purchased from the Bombay Tramways Company the right to
run the road transport services in the city. However, it was not
a direct transaction between the Bombay Tramways Company and the
B.E.S.T. Company. On behalf of A, B bought some rights from C,
and the rights finally came to D - D, in this case, being the
B.E.S.T. Company quite a circuitous operation, wasn’t it?

On
12th March 1901, the Municipality informed the Tramways Company
that it was taking over the transport system under the agreement
concluded between the Company and the Municipality on 12th March
1873. Simultaneously, by a contract, the civic body gave the
Brush Electrical Company of London the sole right to run an
electric tram service in the city as well as to supply
electricity. The Tramways Company then filed a suit, its plea
being that the Municipality had not given it a proper notice as
required by the agreement between them. But the plea failed,
although the matter went up in appeal to the Privy Council.
Meanwhile, on 27th June, 1905, the Bombay Electric Supply and
Tramways Company was established in London under the English
Companies Act, and on 22nd July 1905, it was registered in
Mumbai under the Indian Companies Act of 1882. The Bombay
Tramways Company, the Bombay Municipality, the Brush Electrical
Company and the B.E.S.T. Company signed an Agreement on 31st
July 1905 by which the B.E.S.T. Company was granted the monopoly
for electric supply and the running of an electric tram service
in the city. The B.E.S.T. Company bought the assets of the
Tramway Company for Rs.98,50,000. They included horse-drawn tram
cars and horses, bullock-carts and bullocks, immovable property,
tramway lines and goodwill. The deed of sale was executed in
London on 1st August 1905, and the very next day the B.E.S.T.
Company started functioning in Mumbai.

Some of the important items in the agreement signed by the
Municipality and the B.E.S.T. Company, granting the latter the
monopoly of road transport in the city, were as follows :

(1)
All the existing tramway routes will be taken over by the
Company.

(2)
The Company will have the right to start new routes, with the
prior approval of the Municipality and the permission of the
government.

(3)
If the Municipality desires that a new route should be started,
and the Company is not prepared to lay the track, the
Municipality will get it laid at its own expense, and it will be
handed over to the Company for operation on mutually agreed
conditions.

(4)
The tram fare between any two points on the system will be one
anna.

(5)
The maximum charges for lighting will be six annas per unit.

(6)
The Company will be required to provide transport for the
Municipality, if necessary. The rates for it will be special.
They will cover the cost of the electric energy consumed, the
wear of the machinery, and the incidental expenditure on the
transport, and no more, Transporting night soil will not however
be included in this agreement.

(7)
For the existing routes the ground rent will be rupees three
thousand per mile for a double track, and rupees two thousand
per mile for a single track. When new routes are started, the
rent will be fifty per cent less.

(8)
The Municipality will have the right to purchase the Company 42,
56 or 63 years after the date of the agreement. Notice of
intention to purchase will have to be given at least six months
in advance. If there is no mutual agreement on the price to be
paid, the matter will be left to the decision of an arbitrator.
If the Municipality exercises the right of purchase after 42
years, it will pay, as compensation to the Company, rupees forty
lakhs, over and above the price; after 56 years the compensation
will be twenty lakhs, and after 63 years nil.

THE B.E.S.T. BECOMES MUMBAI-BASED

The
B.E.S.T. Company had been established in England under the
Companies Act of that country. Its registered office was in
London and its Board of Management met there. As a result, the
Company had to pay income-tax to the British Exchequer on the
profits it earned in India, and as it was registered in Mumbai
it had to pay a similar tax in this country too. This double
taxation hit the shareholders in India rather badly. The
Directors of the Company in London, drawing the attention of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer to this in 1909, pointed out the
likelihood of the Indian shareholders insisting on shifting the
Head Office of the Company to Mumbai. Nothing came of it. And,
later the Indian shareholders did insist on the winding up of
the B.E.S.T. Company in London. The First world War started
about the same time. The rates of the British income tax went up
sharply, as did those of the other taxes. This made the double
taxation even more unbearable to the Indian shareholders. The
Company’s Directors made another fervent plea to the Chancellor
of the Exchequer stating that there would soon be no alternative
to closing down its London Office. They further argued that the
Company made all its purchases in England, thus contributing
handsomely to the country’s Treasury. Nothing came of this plea
too.

And
the London Directors’ apprehensions proved to be right! The
Indian shareholders met, with Sir David Sassoon in the Chair,
and passed a resolution to the effect that the Board of
Directors in London should be abolished and the affairs of the
Company should in no way be managed from London.

The British shareholders, meeting in London, passed the
following resolution :

(1)
The direction, control and management of the company’s affairs
will vest in the Mumbai Office, from 1st April 1916, and
meetings of every kind of the General Body, the Board of
Directors and the shareholders of the Company will be held in
Mumbai.

(2)
From 1st April 1916 the Board of Directors of the Company will
be constituted by Sir David Sassoon, Sir Shapurji Bharucha, Sir
Ibrahim Rahimtoola and Mr.G.S. Wardlaw. A Local Board will be
set up in London to look after the Company’s legal affairs
there.

REORGANIZATION OF THE B.E.S.T. COMPANY

As
a result of handling the entire management of the Company from
Mumbai the Board of Directors planned to convert the Company’s
capital in pound sterling into its corresponding/value in
rupees; but, under the Company Law, the only way of achieving it
was by winding up the old Company in London and establishing a
new one in Mumbai. As the B.E.S.T. Company was registered under
the English Companies Act, the law required that the
shareholders meet in London in order to wind it up. Thus they
met in London on 9th June 1920, and passed a resolution to wind
up its affairs. The shareholders in Mumbai met on 30th June
1920, and approved the resolution passed at the London meeting.

The
newly established B.E.S.T. Company had a total capital of Rs.3
crore and 90 lakhs, divided into 6 lakh ordinary shares of 50
rupees each, and 1 lakh 80 thousand preference shares of the
same value.

The
new Company got the formal approval of the Municipality. During
the next twenty-seven years it underwent no fundamental changes.
It is just a story of expansion. The city kept growing, and the
Company’s activities kept pace with it, as was inevitable. The
growth of the Company in fact provided a fairly accurate measure
of the growth of the city, so closely linked they used to be. So
they are even today.

BEST HOUSE

It
was an all-round expansion. There were more and more people
working in the Company’s head-office, and the need for a
spacious enough building for them became more and more pressing.
So the Company purchased a plot of land situated on the Ormiston
Road, and next to the Electric House, for one lakh and
forty-four-thousand rupees from the Municipality to whom it
belonged. Soon a modern structure started coming up on the plot.

This office building had Messrs. F. Mekint as the architects and
Gannon Dunkeley & Co. as the contractors. The building work was
supervised by Shri G.G. Lazaras and Shri K.M. Khareghat, the
Company’s engineers.

The
new building, named BEST House, was very modern in more than
its facade. It was so in a variety of items from the doors and
windows to the minor fixtures, not to speak, of course, of the
furniture. On the first floor was a spacious auditorium equipped
for the screening of films. An upto date device was an electric
indicator on the ground floor which repeated, from the name
plates outside the chambers of the officers, the ‘engaged’ or
‘out’sign. Near the indicator was the inquiry clerk’s counter.
Another special feature was that the entire office building was
air-conditioned. it was the first office building in Mumbai with
this convenience, and served as a model to many in the years
that followed.

The
building was ready for occupation in 1936. Into it moved all the
departments accommodated in the Electric House till then. Such
departments as Consumers’ Services, Cash, Shares, Provident
Fund, Audit and Accounts, which had to deal with the public,
were housed on the ground floor, and the office of the General
Manager on the first floor. The Traffic Department was housed in
Electric House. When the BEST House was inaugurated, it received
warm praises from the newspapers and leading city architects as
a handsome structure.

It
was an American who first thought of setting up such a concern
in Mumbai to provide electricity and transport. Messrs Sternes
Hobart, an American Company, first applied for permission to set
it up. That was in 1865. The permission was granted. But it
proved to be unavailing, because the economic life of the city
was badly upset following the end of the American Civil War. The
application was renewed in 1872, but there were two more
applicants this time : Messrs. Lawrence and Company, and the
British and Foreign Tramway Company.

By
1905, the British seem to have become more alert and
enterprising, for in that year a British concern bagged the twin
monopoly of supplying electricity and transport to the city.
Oddly enough, Mr.Remington, the Managing Director of the Bombay
Tramways Company, the American concern, was British and he
became the Managing Director of the B.E.S.T. Company.

The
B.E.S.T. Company won repute as a model organisation. It served
the city well, by efficiently supplying two very real needs of
its people. But ‘service’ was no more than a means to it, the
end being making profit. And profits were made using every
legitimate way! Legally an Indian concern, the B.E.S.T. Company
somehow always bore a British impress!. The ‘Sahib’ cast a long
shadow on it, - this was understandable, considering those days.
All the equipment the Company needed used to be imported from
England; so were the technical experts! Even when, after the
reorganization, the London Office was closed down, Mr. A.T.
Cooper was appointed Agent to the Company in London, in 1924, to
make purchases on its behalf. Mr.Cooper had been earlier
Managing Engineer of the B.E.S.T. Company. On retirement he went
to London, where the Agent’s job seemed to be the very thing for
him! There was another assignment for him too as consulting
Engineer to the Company! The emoluments were generous; and, of
course, there were the other benefits like gratuity and
provident fund. Finally on 1st January 1945, Mr.Cooper retired
from these posts. But by then, the times had changed. A new era
was round the corner. May be because of this, or perhaps because
it was more convenient, the London agency of the Company was
entrusted to the London Office of an Indian concern, the Tata
Company.

The
Company had "Sahibs’ raj" till 7th August 1947, and that not
merely in its administration. Even the social and festive
occasions showed it. The New Year was ushered in with a ball
dance in a big way, and a large number of Indian officers joined
it, several of them with dutiful zest! Nowadays the Dassera is
celebrated in the Head Office with lovely rangoli patterns
decorating the floor. Times have changed indeed! One ‘Peel
Sahib’ was the lord in the Kingsway Depot area. The Officers’
Quarters now house twelve or thirteen families. In those days,
just three officers used to occupy all the space between
themselves, each one being allotted about three thousand square
feet of area! Even their poultry enjoyed spacious accommodation,
right next to the masters’ flats. To enable Peel Sahib to reach
the Workshop directly from his residence, a special staircase
was put up.

This is not intended to cavil at it all, but to bring you the
flavour of those spacious times. We must not forget that these
‘Sahibs’ did not just enjoy the good things of life, they also
put in hard work. And in work, they laid down valuable
traditions, and they gave the organization a strong foundation.

In
course of time, the Board of Directors of the Company had a
majority of Indians on it. But they did not meddle with the
structure of the Company or with its norms of working.

It
would seem that, on the whole, the ‘Sahibs’ had little faith in
the efficiency of the ‘natives’. A glance at a list of the
Company’s employees in those days will make it clear that a
‘native’ occupying a responsible position was an exception. In
the workshops, even such relatively lower posts as foreman or
assistant foreman were virtually reserved for whites. In fact,
outside the administrative section, all the important posts were
occupied by ‘Sahibs’.

The
B.E.S.T. Company came into existence on 7th August 1905; it was
dissolved on 6th August 1947, to make room for the B.E.S.T.
Undertaking. Once before there had been a similar taking over
when the Bombay Tramways Company ceased to exist. But this
take-over was not quite ‘similar’. Now the ownership of the
concern came to the Municipal Corporation. This was a week
before the country became free. it was therefore a significant
event in several ways. The B.E.S.T. Undertaking was the first
‘public’ enterprise in the country. To run it successfully was a
national duty.